(Matthew 18:21-35)

21Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" 22Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times. 23"Therefore, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. 24As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. 25Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.  26"The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' 27The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go. 28"But when that servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii. He grabbed him and began to choke him. 'Pay back what you owe me!' he demanded. 29"His fellow servant fell to his knees and begged him, 'Be patient with me, and I will pay you back.' 30"But he refused. Instead, he went off and had the man thrown into prison until he could pay the debt. 31When the other servants saw what had happened, they were greatly distressed and went and told their master everything that had happened. 32"Then the master called the servant in. 'You wicked servant,' he said, 'I canceled all that debt of yours because you begged me to. 33Shouldn't you have had mercy on your fellow servant just as I had on you?' 34In anger his master turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed. 35"This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart."

I have some homework for you. I have printed out a copy of my sermon along with the passage from the Gospel. The reason that I have done this is to remind you that the sermon is only my interpretation of the scripture. The Bible is written in every language on earth so that people can read it for themselves. I am trying to draw out the implications from the passage but I need you to be reading the Bible yourselves so that God can speak to you directly. The sermon is printed out and posted each week on the church website (www.ststephensw12.org).

I talked last week about saying sorry – forgiveness is a part of the DNA of the Christian faith. The Bible is blunt about the need for us (always, unequivocally and without holding anything back) to forgive other people.

14For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. 15But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins (Matthew 6:14-15)

This can be a tough call when we feel hard done by and need to do the forgiving. If you always have to forgive other people then you can end up feeling doubly disadvantaged. Not only do you have to deal with what the person has done to you but you also have to forgive them. It means that it is the oppressed, vulnerable and disadvantaged that have to make the first move. Pattison (2000:200) writes that the responsibility for change and forgiveness lies with those who have had to bear most in the first place and may have the least inner resources for affecting reconciliation.

I have been in the situation once in my life where I needed to forgive someone who was treating me badly. The one thing that was helping me through this situation was my sense of outrage at what had happened – during this period my anger helped me to cope. The Bible teaches us that anger is not always wrong. There was one occasion when Jesus was angry with the Pharisees. They were trying to set him up to see whether he would heal a man with a shrivelled hand on the Sabbath. He looked around at them in anger deeply distressed at their stubborn hearts (Mark 1:5). Anger is wrong only when it leads to bitterness, recrimination and condemnation. Forgiveness does not mean pretending that nothing has happened. It means acknowledging, understanding and then forgiving.

Forgiving is an intention rather than a feeling. This means that it is not a single moment in time – One day we might feel forgiveness and the next day he be angry and feel the same pain all over again. It is a gradual process and not a single moment in time; it is a journey towards wholeness – what Mackintosh (1927:129) calls voyages of anguish. Genuine forgiveness is written in blood – the pain remains but the poison has gone.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu said this of the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee in South Africa: ‘to forgive is not just to be altruistic. It is the best form of self-interest. It is also a process that does not exclude hatred and anger. There emotions are all part of being human. You should never hate yourself for hating others who do terrible things: the depth of your love is shown by the extent of your anger’ (www.theforgivenessproject.com). It is counter intuitive to let someone off (not to hold against someone) something that they have done to you. Nothing is less obvious than forgiveness but at the same time nothing is more necessary.

Forgiveness is a gift we give to others. It is a gift not a transaction and there are no terms involved in giving a gift. It is not a negotiation where the other person has to accept the conditions on offer. Receiving forgiveness is dependant on repentance but giving forgiveness is not.

Forgiveness is a gift we give to ourselves since non-forgiveness comes from a lack of hope; it is a sullen resignation that things will not change. We can be chained by the idea that events will repeat themselves. In my weekly assembly at the local primary school I asked the children why they thought that it might be important to forgive people. A 10-year-old child shot his hand up at the end of a sketch on forgiveness. “Please Sir”, he gasped, “…If you don’t forgive you are frightened that it will all happen again.

Forgiveness is within the very nature of our beings. Imagine our lives as a piece of music. We have heard it played by a virtuoso. We love it and would like to play it well. But try as we might, we fail. The process of being able to play our music beautifully can start with our being willing to forgive. It takes practice and so I have included some prayers that we can try together.

Methodist Church (2001) Vows and Partings, Methodist Publishing House, Peterborough
Pattison, S., (2000) Shame. Theory, Therapy, Theology, Cambridge University Press